Health Ministry urges stricter management of private clinics

The Minister of Health on July 3 signed a directive to enhance the management of operation of private medical examination and treatment establishments.

The Minister of Health on July 3 signed Directive No. 04 to enhance the management of operation of private medical examination and treatment establishments__Photo:

With Directive No. 04/CT-BYT, the Minister emphasizes the importance of 206 private hospitals and over 30,000 private clinics across the country, which helps lessen the overload of public hospitals and facilitate the provision of health services to population.

However, the Minister points out law-breaking acts recently committed by some private medical examination and treatment establishments, including inviting foreign doctors to practice in Vietnam without practice certificates; letting their doctors practice beyond their certified professional capacity; using medicines of unclear origin or banned from circulation in Vietnam; advertising their services beyond their certified professional capacity; failing to make public prices of their medical services; collecting service charges higher than the listed rates; and failing to keep health records in conformity with the Ministry’s regulations.

Under the Directive, the Ministry of Health requests provincial-level health departments to strengthen the management of medical practitioners, ensuring that all of them have practice certificates and work within their certified professional capacity.

Provincial-level health departments are also requested to publish on their websites lists of private medical examination and treatment establishments licensed to operate in their localities so that local people can search information about clinics before using their services.

In addition, private clinics are obliged to publicly notify information about their operation licenses, including scope of professional operation, service time, capacity certificates of their managers and medical practitioners; medical examination and treatment service charge rates; and names and addresses of state agencies directly managing them so that local residents can report their violations, if any.

The Ministry also requests provincial-level health departments to intensify regular and extraordinary inspection of private clinics and strictly handle violations in medical examination and treatment.- (VLLF)